January 2012 Jokes

Starting off the new year with some punny jokes!

Where can you buy British rail bubble gum?
On a chew chew train!
What do you call a row of men waiting for a haircut?
A BarberCue!

Why did the witch put her broom in the washing machine?
She wanted to have a clean sweep!

Why did the rooster crow before daybreak?
His cluck was too fast!

Thanks for laughing!
Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

Keep Digging to Help Your Clients

Sales on hand is pretty easy. Some say you find a "customer's pain" and solve it with your product. No matter what your product does, it will work for your client. 

I say that approach is only partially right.
1. The client may have a "pain (i.e. lack of customers),"
2. but unless you get to the root of what is causing that lack of customers (i.e. no advertising)
3. it doesn't let you get down to reason there isn't any advertising (i.e. client got burned too many times by sales reps that over promised and under delivered).
4. You have to keep digging to see if the reason they are gun shy is because of all the bad reps they have had, or does it extend to all the decisions made by them for the company.
5. Then you have to find out why they make decisions that way ("because that us the way it is, and no smart aleck young salesperson is going to tell me different!"). 
6. Once you find the real reasons behind the pain, then and only then can you see if your product will work. If it relieves the symptoms and the root cause of the pain, you're probably on your way to a sale.

An easier way to say what I've said above is to imagine this scenario.
Many people have back pain.
They go to their doctor.
Doctor prescribes pain meds and physical therapy.
Pain meds relieve the pain for awhile.
Phyical therapy might make movement easier.
Meds and physical therapy don't ultimately solve the back problem.
Your body isn't in pain because of a lack of pain meds.
The problem is a subluxation of the vertebrae in the spine?
What is a subluxation?

The person goes to a chiropractor. 
Chiroprator gets the bones in the spine back in alignment giving the body the chance to heal itself.
What caused the subluxation in the first place? Lets say it is stress causing muscles to spasm and "pull" the one vertebrae out of alignment with the rest of the vertebrae.
What is causing the stress?
Relieve the stress and odds are the subluxation won't happen again and the body will naturally heal itself faster.   

As a salesperson you have to be the chiropractor and get to the ultimate cause of the pain. Not just the subluxation, but the stress.

Thanks for reading, and yes I endorse chiropractic care whenever possible.
Ev

January 2012 Newsletter

Happy 2012!

Granted it would be better if we had a Super Bowl to look forward to with the Packers, however there is always a potential World Series with the Brewers!

Below are some quick articles I thought you might be interested in:

Many of you have asked me what Brian Weis, former owner of WisconsinJobs.com has been up to. He granted me a two part interview:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/brian-weis-interview-pt-i.html
Part 2:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/brian-weiss-interview-pt-ii.html

The goofiest local job ad of the year in my opinion:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/for-real-goofy-job-ad.html

Jokes clean enough to tell your mother:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/december-jokes-2011.html

There are other articles as well so please feel free to search my blog.
Thank you for everything!
Have a great January!

Everet Kamikawa
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"
http://www.linkedin.com/in/everetkamikawa

Referrals: If You Don't Ask - You Don't Get

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every call you make to a customer was set up in advance and led smoothly to a sale? Ideal world right? Referrals can lead you towards that goal.
The more referrals you have the less cold calls you have to make. The trick: You have to ask for them.
You have to make It a habit to be successful.
I've known this for years, chances are so have you, but I don't always remember either. SO as a way to remind myself and you how to ask for referrals, here are some ways to get started:

=When you begin working with a new customer, make referrals part of your initial agreement. Ask, "If I do a great job for you will you refer me to others that I can help?" Get their agreement on the concept first. Then drop it. Prove yourself first before asking for referrals otherwise your client might think you don't care for them just the referral.

=Set a weekly goal for yourself. Keep track of the number of referrals you ask for. Ask anyone in your network.

=When planning client meetings make a note to ask for referral. Sometimes writing something down is better than trying to remember it, so include it as an agenda item.

=Make a goal at networking events to talk to at least three new people beyond the usual number of people you usually talk to.

=Be specific when asking for a referral. Let your client know who you are looking to reach so they can make a qualified referral. Even if they don't have someone right way to give you, by proving yourself to them they will remember you when they do meet someone that can use your service.

=Givers get or in other words give and you shall receive.
One of the most powerful ways to elicit referrals is to give them generously yourself. Whenever you have the opportunity to refer an associate or bring two contacts together, do so. And when you're attending the aforementioned networking event, make a point of introducing people to one another. Most people will appreciate the referral, and it may inspire them to respond in kind.

=Always thank someone who has given you a referral. Send them a note, keep them informed of your progress and maybe even treat them to lunch. Let them know you appreciated their effort.

Getting into the habit of asking for referrals is a great way to gain new prospects and clients. The more you ask and give, the more referrals you will receive.

Is there anyone in your network looking to hire entry level IT or graphic design graduates? See how I did that? Good habits start with one step.

Thanks!
Ev

Make More Sales: Call Them Back!

If you want to make more sales this year, here is an easy yet often overlooked way of doing it, call your prospect back and do what you are going to say you will do!

This winter I had to need to hire a snow removal service for a small property I own.
I asked for referrals from friends and colleagues. I received nine names and numbers.
I called all nine companies at least twice (because no one returned my call after the first time).
Out of the nine companies eight called me back. 
Of the eight companies, three said they do not plow properties on that side of the town I live in.
All of the remaining five companies said they would send a salesperson to look at the property and get back to me within two days.
Two companies followed through.
The other three never returned a follow up call by me to get their decision.
Of the two companies both passed on the job, however one company called me back with a referral to a partner company that would do the job.
This last company looked at the property within two days and agreed to take the job.

How long did this process take, TWO WEEKS!

If all nine companies had answered my call on the first day, six would have taken a look at the property within two days. I would take one day to decide and follow up with the winner of the contract that same day or the next. Total time would be at MOST five days. A savings of none days of consternation and running around looking for companies and answers.

Return your prospects calls right away:
1. You might be the only one who does and win the account
2. The sooner you get to your customer the sooner you can beat off the competition
3. You save your customer time and consternation which they will love you for

Thanks for reading!
Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

2012 Focus

Image by Everet Kamikawa

2012 is here. A time for new beginnings on some things, continuation of others. New ventures and tried and true. Where the road of this year will take you is up to you.

With that in mind you will notice a slight change in the format and content of this blog. I've been getting lots of comments and emails from recruiters and HR salespeople who like reading my sales advice. Many of these comments are centered around the fact that they don't feel they get enough training on how to initially sell their clients. They say they are fine once they get the relationship started, but want to know how do they get to that point of building the relationship. I hope to answer some of those questions as I've spent the better part of 20 years as a salesman in the HR industry and recruiter. I may not have all the answers, but judging from your responses over the years I have some!

I will still write and post articles for the job seeker and manager when relevant so don't feel like you can't keep reading, in fact I hope you do!

The monthly jokes will still be there as well.

Thank you for reading and Happy New Year!
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

December Jokes 2011

You've been waiting all month!
Here are some jokes to tell at your New Years parties:


What do the 2011 Green bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and Minnesota Vikings all have in common?
They're all sitting out the first round of the playoffs!

Why don't most blind people skydive?
Because it scares the dogs!

What do dogs and trees have in common?
Bark

What is a vampire's favorite food?
NECKtarines

What do you get when you cross a detective with a skeleton?
Sherlock Bones

What do you need to know to be an auctioneer?
Lots

Thanks for reading and laughing!
Happy New Year!
Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

Did You Check to See How Your Ad Appears?

In this day and age of mobile, cloud computing, social media, and good old fashioned email, it is important for you to understand how your ad will appear on the different media you use.
A good example is this ad below that was posted on MilwaukeeJobs.com and was sent to me via a search agent on Indeed.com. What type pf person are they looking for? Would you apply to this ad? What does this say about your company?
Thanks!
Ev


Graphic Designer/Web Developer


(Name Withheld) - Wauwatosa, WI

See original job posting at MilwaukeeJobs.com »

nbsp;Graphic Designer/Web Developer nbsp; Type:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Full-time Hours:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; 40 Compensation:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Commensurate with experience Start Date: nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; approx. Dec 1st Location:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Wauwatosa Travel:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; 5 nbsp; nbsp;



Organization:

We provides an innovative and comprehensive suite of lending services and technology solutions to thousands of banks, lenders and other mortgage industry firms nationwide.nbsp; Our rapidly growing organization offers a flexible yet fast-paced work environment. We are headq

YouTube 2011 Rewind

I love end of the year reviews. So what did we watch on YouTube this year?
Since very few of us are at work the day after Christmas and you might need something to waste some time while waiting to get home this week, take a look.
How many of these do you remember watching or hearing about?
Happy New Year!
Ev

2011 YouTube Rewind

Predictions for 2012

Predictions for 2012 by Dr. John Sullivan.
Happy 2012!
Ev

Trends in Talent Management and Recruiting by Dr. John Sullivan

It’s always better to be prepared than surprised.

By definition, being strategic requires that you look forward — identifying trends, opportunities, and threats. With the December lull looming, now is a great time to plan for the future. I’ve listed the “top 10 talent management trends” I foresee that require your attention. But you should certainly do your own thinking. I recommend that you start by examining this past year…

2011 Was The Year of Social Media

2011 was a tough year for many in talent management, but despite compressed budgets, organizations continued to hire and develop talent. One factor that seemed to invade nearly every high-level functional discussion was social media. It’s clear that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter will play a dominate role in recruiting and development best practices in years to come.

Not surprisingly, 2011 saw no fewer than 40 new vendors emerge to help organizations use social media to attract referrals. We also started to see early stage tools to use social media in talent assessment (pre/post hire) as well as applicant/candidate/employee experience management. New tools brought much enhanced visibility into talent issues, but most talent-management metrics continue not to resonate with key leaders outside of the HR function.

2012 Will Be “The Year of the Mobile Platform”

By the end of next year, even the skeptics will have to admit that the mobile platform will have become the dominant communications and interaction platform by early-adopting best-practice organizations. The capabilities afforded users of smartphones and tablet devices grows immensely day by day. Long before unified inboxes existed for the desktop, smart device users could see all incoming e-mail, social messaging, text messaging, and voice and video messaging in a single place.

Tablets will become the virtual classroom, and an emerging class of tools will let employees manage almost every aspect of their professional life digitally. During the next year, talent management leaders need to invest heavily supporting execution of talent management initiatives across mobile.

The Additional Top Nine!

Intense hiring competition will return in selected areas — global economic issues will persist for years to come, but the global war for talent will continue spiking in key regions an industries. While growth has slowed somewhat in China, Australia and Southeast Asia — including India — continue to see dramatic demand for skilled talent. In the U.S. and Europe, demand is still largely limited to certain industries where skills shortages have been an issue for years.

In high tech inclusive of medical technologies, 2012 will see a significant escalation in the war for top talent. As innovators and game changers step out of established tech firms like Facebook, Apple, Google, Twitter, and Zynga, a whole new breed to tech startups will be born each vying for the best of the best. While recruiting will move forward at a breathtaking pace, so too will “rapid” leadership development.

Retention issues will increase dramatically — almost every survey shows that despite high engagement scores, more than a majority of employees are willing to quit their current job as soon as a better opportunity comes along. I am predicting that turnover rates in high-demand occupations will increase by 25% during the next year and because most corporate retention programs have been so severely degraded, retention could turn out to be the highest-economic-impact area in all of talent management.Rather than the traditional “one-size-fits-all” retention strategy, a targeted personalized approach will be required if you expect to have a reasonable chance to retain your top talent.

Social media increases its impact by becoming more data-driven — most firms jumped on the social media bandwagon, but unfortunately the trial-and-error approach used by most has produced only mediocre results. Adapting social media tools from the business coupled with strong analytics will allow a more focused approach that harnesses and directs the effort of all employees on social media. Talent leaders will increasingly see the value of a combination of internal and external social media approaches for managing and developing talent.

Remote work changes everything in talent management — the continued growth of technology, social media, and easy communications now makes it possible for most knowledge work and team activities to occur remotely. Allowing top talent to work “wherever they want to work” improves retention and makes recruiting dramatically easier.

Unfortunately, even though it is now possible for as much as 50% of a firm’s jobs to be done remotely, manager and HR resistance has limited the trend. Fortunately, managers and talent management leaders have begun to realize that teamwork, learning, development, recruiting, and best-practice sharing can now successfully be accomplished using remote methods. Firms like IBM and Cisco have led the way in reducing and eliminating barriers to remote work.

The need for speed shifts the balance between development and recruiting — historically, best practice within corporations has been to build and develop primarily from within. However, as the speed of change in business continues to increase and the number of firms that copy the “Apple model” (where firm is continually crossing industry boundaries) increases, talent managers will need to rethink the “develop internally first” approach.

In many cases, recruiting becomes a more viable option because there simply isn’t time for current employees to develop completely new skills. As a result, the trend will be to continually shift the balance toward recruiting for immediate needs and the use of contingent labor for short-duration opportunities and problems.

Employee referrals are coupled with social media — the employee referral program in many organizations is operated in isolation as are the organizations’ social media efforts, but talent managers are beginning to realize that the real strength of social media is relationship-building by your employees.

With proper coordination, employee relationships can easily be turned into employee referrals. This realization will lead to a shift away from recruiters and toward relying on employees to build social media contacts and relationships. The net result will be that as many as 60% of all hires will come from the combined efforts. The strength of these relationships will lead to better assessment and the highest-quality hires from employee referrals.

Employer branding returns — Employer branding and building talent communities are the only long-term strategies in recruiting. True branding is rarely practiced (hint: it’s not recruitment marketing) especially in the cash-strapped function of today, but years of layoffs, cuts in compensation, and generally bad press for business in general may force firms to invest in true branding. The increased use of social media and frequent visits to employee criticism sites (like Glassdoor.com), make not managing employer brand perception a risky proposition. While corporations will never control their employer brand, they can monitor and influence in a direction that isn’t catastrophic to recruiting and retention.

The candidate experience is finally getting the attention it deserves — Organizations have never treated candidates as well as they did their customers, but the high jobless rate has allowed corporations to essentially abuse some applicants. As competition for talent increases and as more applicants visit employer criticism sites like Glassdoor.com, talent leaders will be forced to modify their approach.

At the very least, firms will more closely monitor candidate experience metrics as they realize that treating applicants poorly can not only drive away other high-quality applicants but it can also lose them sales and customers.

Forward-looking metrics begin to dominate — Almost all current talent management and recruiting metrics are backward looking, in that they tell you what happened in the past. Other business functions like supply chain, production, and finance have long championed the use of “forward-looking” or predictive metrics and the time is finally coming when talent management leaders will shift their metrics emphasis. Forward-looking metrics can not only improve decision-making but they can also help to prevent or mitigate future talent problems.

Other Things to Keep Your Eye On…

In addition to the major trends highlighted above, there are 12 additional “hot” topics to keep your eye on:

•Risk identification — almost every other business function has already adopted a risk management strategy. So the time is coming when talent management will be forced to adopt a similar strategy and set of metrics. This program will not only cover HR legal issues but also the economic “risk” associated with weak hiring, the absence of developed leaders, and the cost of turnover of key talent.

•Prioritization — continued budget and resource pressure will force talent management leaders to prioritize their services, business units, key jobs, and high-value managers/employees.

•Integration — there will be increasing pressure for talent management functions to more closely integrate and work seamlessly.

•Expedited leadership development — as more baby-boom leaders and managers actually begin to retire, there will be increased pressure for expedited leadership development — specifically solutions that develop talent remotely using social media tools and within months rather than years.

•Competitive analysis — the increasingly competitive business world has forced almost every function to be more externally focused. Although HR has a long history of being internally focused and not being “highly competitive,” there is increasing pressure to become more business-like and to adopt an “us-versus-them” perspective. That means conducting competitive analysis and making sure that every key talent management function produces superior results to those at competitors.

•Contingent workers — as continuous business volatility becomes the “new normal,” the increased use and the improved management of contingent workers will become essential for agility and flexibility.

•Unionization — there is a reasonable chance that actions by the NLRB will increase union power and make it easier for unions to gain acceptance at private employers.

•Recruiting at industry events — as industry events return to popularity, recruiting at them will again become an effective tool for recruiting top and diverse talent.

•Location software — talent managers will begin to realize that software that allows you to check-in and see who is within close geographic proximity has great value and many still unidentified uses.

•Hire before they do — most firms will restrict their hiring until the turnaround actually begins. However, your firm must have a talent pool or pipeline developed, so that you can hire immediately and capture the top talent right before your competitors realize the downturn is over.

•Assessment continues to improve — vendors, software, and tools continue to improve in this area that will become increasingly important.

•Increase your revenue impact — increased economic pressures will continue the trend of forcing all functions (including talent management) to convert their functional results into business impacts in dollars. Talent management will face increasing pressure to directly demonstrate how their hiring, retention, development, etc. is focused, so that it directly increases and maximizes corporate revenues.

Final Thoughts

A recent survey of CEOs rates talent management as the No. 1 area where CEOs expect dramatic change during the next year. Given this increased attention, it’s even more critical that talent management and recruiting leaders set aside time to conduct a SWOT assessment (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to identify where they are and where they need to be.

The “new” talent management leader must be more strategic, more proactive, and more business-like, and that means getting your entire staff to begin thinking about and planning for the game-changing events, trends, and opportunities that will occur during the next year. It’s time to realize the “but-we-are-overwhelmed-and-too-busy” excuse for not forecasting and planning is wearing thin.